In the cylinder shutoff of an internal combustion engine, a portion of the cylinders is shut off; for example in half-engine operation (HMB), one-half of the cylinders are shut off by shutting off the intake and exhaust valves as well as the injection, making it possible to save fuel compared to full-engine operation (VMB). Alternatively, half-engine operation can also be implemented by shutting off the injection (abbreviated as HMBEVA). Fresh air is then pumped through the relevant cylinder, as a result of which the downstream catalytic converter can no longer convert at a lambda value equal to one. Therefore, HMBEVA is only implemented in a bank blank-out configuration, since one cylinder bank is always operated normally and completely. In half-engine operation, all cylinders in the second cylinder bank are then blanked out (shut off).
Implementations of half-engine operations have only been known so far for designs in which one control unit (SG) is used. When two control units are used, the cylinders of one bank are controlled by one control unit. The cylinders of the other bank are controlled by the second control unit. In half-engine operation including injection shutoff and continued operation of the gas exchange valves, one control unit continues to operate the injection and the other control unit completely shuts it off. Information between the two control units is normally exchanged via a bus, for example, a CAN bus or a FlexRay bus.